Archive for the ‘Outside Line Office’ Category

We are currently looking for a junior to mid-weight Producer/Project Manager to join our team here at Outside Line.

You will form part of our production team, responsible for the delivery of a mix of digital campaigns across a few different accounts managing projects like websites, social media and banners.

Based in Farringdon, London, Outside Line is a full service digital agency that brings great ideas to life.

From design and development through to content creation and social media marketing, we work with global brands to deliver innovative and engaging campaigns.

Candidates should have a strong interest in digital projects, as well as a healthy obsession with design trends and web innovations. Requirements:

Main responsibilities of the Digital Producer:

- develop all project documentation (scope, budget and timeline)
- ensure quality work is delivered on time and on budget
- manage account team/client expectations and manage project risk
- ensure all project deliverables produced are to the correct specifications and of the highest quality

To be considered for the role of Digital Producer you must have:

- previous experience as a Digital Producer within an agency
- have managed the delivery of digital campaign projects
- ability to work in a fast-paced environment
- excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
- great organisational skills and attention to detail

We are currently looking for two designers to join our expanding and highly skilled team here at Outside Line. You will form part of our digital design department, creating designs for web, digital experiences and installations.

Based in Farringdon, London, Outside Line is a full service digital agency that brings great ideas to life. From design and development through to content creation and social media marketing, we work with global brands to deliver innovative and engaging campaigns.

Candidates should have a strong interest in digital design, as well as a healthy obsession with design trends and web innovations. Requirements:

Junior Designer
- BFA in Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Fine Arts or related, and/or equivalent work experience
- Experience with Photoshop
- Experience with designing for digital solutions and understanding of the medium
- A strong portfolio that shows great potential
- Understanding of typography and layout with attention to detail
- Must be able to handle multiple projects and work well in a team
- Desire to learn
- Stay on top of industry trends and share them with the team

MId-Senior Designer
- BFA in Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Fine Arts or related, and/or equivalent work experience
- 3+ years of interactive design experience
- A portfolio showcasing your design aesthetic
- Expert-level in Photoshop and Illustrator
- The ability to conceptualize and design for different types of digital products (sites, rich media, mobile, etc)
- Knowledge of designing for HTML5/CSS3 preferred
- Some experience with 3D software is a bonus
- Ability to work in a team and alone; both to learn and mentor

Submissions without portfolios will not be considered. We are very interested in seeing real life, on-the-job work from internships, freelance projects, etc.

What does it mean to do business in a truly social economy? More importantly, what does it take to succeed?

These are two questions at the forefront of any modern marketer’s mind, although the answers are slightly harder to come by. Thankfully, this month we’re hosting our very own seminar on the subject so you can really get to grips with your place as part of ‘The Networked Economy’.

Taking place at The Hospital Club in Central London on the morning of Friday 25th May, our planning director Ronnie Crosbie will be taking guests on a whistle-stop tour through three of the most influential marketing texts of recent times – Alan Moore’s ‘No Straight Lines’, Joseph Pine & Kim Korn’s ‘Infinite Possibility’ and Alex Bogusky & John Windsor’s ‘Baked In’.

Using these texts as a foundation, Ronnie will look at how advances in social, mobile and digital technology have rewritten the landscape of the modern marketplace, returning us to an economy in which word-of-mouth, personal recommendation and social communication are once again the keys to brand success.

Yesterday, we launched ‘FoodBeats‘, an online music tool for Lurpak® in partnership with Last.fm. And what better way to celebrate than use the tool just how we intended – by creating some culinary delights and listening to some tunes!

As we’re not fortunate enough to have an oven (microwaves really don’t count), we bought in a variety of ingredients, and challenged the office to make the perfect sandwich.

What did we learn from the experience? Well, it’s pretty difficult to prevent a free-for-all when you’ve got 60+ people trying to make themselves a sandwich. But most of all, FoodBeats really is great for providing the soundtrack to your cooking (or sandwich making) experience. Thanks to Last.fm, some pretty awesome tunes came up on the playlist. No more butter-covered fingers all over the laptop keys as you search for a track!

From the ballet video lookbooks of Opening Ceremony and Chloe to French Connection’s YouTube shop there’s some interesting innovations going on in the world of fashion retail. Our favourite this week is from exclusive designer menswear online store oki-ni.

Their fully interactive video THE GAME not only presents a stylish video but also lets users click and shop any look. Great execution.

“If your house was burning, what would you take with you? It’s a conflict between what’s practical, valuable and sentimental. What you would take reflects your interests, background and priorities. Think of it as an interview condensed into one question.”

Not entirely a new concept but certainly the best execution we’ve seen. Everyone is invited to submit their Burning House photograph… we’re trying to work out what we’d take with us if the office was burning down… possibly not the most practical but the foosball table is definitely top of the list!

Ever cringed when you’ve seen your dad try to use a computer… and then cringed even more when you’ve stumbled upon his browser history? Well check this out… Norman N’s son has told him that Twitter is how you search on Google…

Heated debate on Carlsberg’s gender-neutral beer went on through the night and still rages on in the form of passive aggressive beer comments even now. Regardless of whether it will sell or not, there is no denying that the design and packaging is great.

In a world where you’re either an iPhone or an Android, a Beatle or a Rolling Stone, a breast or a thigh (*ahem*), it’s increasingly important to pick your side… and fast. As such, we’ve asked some of the Outside Line team which side they take in the ultimate social media showdown: Twitter vs Facebook?

Kelly Wheeler, Editorial Content

Our bank of desks in the Outside Line office is known for its heated debates (and chocolate). One of the more interesting questions raised recently was along the lines of “if you could only ever visit one website again, which site would it be?”

My first thought was Facebook. Obviously. In this day and age you can’t survive without knowing exactly what that guy who used to sit next to you in biology class had for breakfast, can you? But then when it came down to the (proverbial) wire and I was about to (hypothetically) choose Facebook and banish Twitter from my life forever, I (realistically) just couldn’t do it.

So what does that mean? I was being sneaky and trying to circumvent the ‘one website only’ rule by choosing an interface rife with links? Well, yes, but that was soon vetoed. Rather, for me Twitter has become one of the main ways that I stay up to date with what other people, like me, think is worth knowing.

I like seeing someone’s opinion on a breaking news story and then clicking through to formulate my own. I feel better knowing that other people also believe that something as trivial as a good cup of tea makes their day and is worth a tweet. I revel in being able to find a corny joke whenever I need one. And most of all, I love that my mom is not on Twitter.

After all, if you have to tell me about your breakfast, at least it’ll only bore me for 140 characters or less.

Round 1… goes to Twitter

Chris Welton, Social Media

It’s a doozy of a question.

From a purely selfish point of view, without Twitter I may not be in the job I’m in right now (thanks again for the recommendation @EddHannay). But without Facebook my role probably wouldn’t exist!

While that leaves no real clear ‘winner’, I’m genuinely convinced Twitter has improved my knowledge, expanded my profile socially and professionally, while also acting as one of my key sources for news and information.

I’ve been a Facebook fan for a number of years and it’s a brilliant innovation (if only I had thought of it!) Recently, however, it has suffered a fall from grace, having, inadvertently, garnered a public image usually reserved for soap operas – lots of viewers and long time fans but few who would be proud to admit it. Despite this, it is, undoubtedly, one of the most useful tools of the modern age; not only does it enable us to stay in touch with friends on the other side of the planet, but we can share (or enviously stalk through) holiday photos, keep note of birthdays, stay up to date with the latest events and of course, parade your latest ’relationship status’ with the world, all with a minimal amount of effort.

All that said, over the last year I have been converted into a Twitterite. I love it. The great thing about Twitter is the lightning quick pace and the amount of information you can consume in a short amount of time; you can find out what’s going on in your favourite blogs, catch up with the latest news and (how could we forget?!) follow the trials and tribulations of your favourite (or least favourite) celebrities, all without spending your lunch hour at your desk. I think Twitter has also brought down a lot of barriers; bringing together different internet communities and allowing people to connect with others that would have, previously, been out of reach.

So with all that said, I can conclude that you will mainly find me tweeting (@nicola_lentin) tonight as the new Apprentice is aired!

Round 3… too close to call

Mike Mackay, Development

For me, it’s all about Twitter.

While Facebook is where the majority of users are, I prefer the minimal intrusion that Twitter offers. Facebook has become increasingly commercialised – while things are starting to move in that direction with Twitter too, you can’t go anywhere on Facebook without being targetted – unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), it does, however, yield the results companies and individuals are looking for. Twitter, for me, is also more about convenience – there are a plethora of apps that enable me to interact with the platform however I choose.

…and the best bit? Not a single Farmville request in sight.

Round 4… another one for Twitter.

So it looks like an, almost, unanimous victory for Twitter.

We prefer the unrestricted, individualistic nature of Twitter as opposed to Facebook’s rigid, overly commercialised regime. However, as Mike states, Facebook does achieve results and still has the bigger user base (almost five times that of Twitter). Is it that we actually prefer Twitter and find it more useful or is it, as Nicola suggests, that Facebook has more of a PR problem?

The big problem is that the question we posed is flawed (sorry guys!); it’s not the same as being a PC or a Mac, it’s not a decision you have to, or indeed should, make… you can be both Twitter and Facebook. They serve different purposes, particularly in terms of their role in advertising. Just as print and TV ads are effective in different ways, Twitter and Facebook reach different audiences, provide a different experience and engage with consumers differently. So, whether you’re a Zuckerbergite or a Biz Stoner, we all need to get on board with both and understand the real benefits of each.

“BBCify mashes up TV and radio listings from the BBC with Spotify to create playlists of shows.

As well as new playlists for each broadcast, BBCify also creates magic playlists; a single playlist that gets updated every day with the latest tracks. Add a magic playlist to your phone, set it to sync offline and each morning you’ll awake to great playlists lovingly crafted by the awesome BBC people.”

Another video that we’ve been waiting a long time to see, Ridley Scott’s ‘Life in a Day’ project.

“On July 24, 2010, thousands of people around the world uploaded videos of their lives to YouTube to take part in Life in a Day, a historic cinematic experiment to create a documentary film about a single day on earth.”

This film will attempt to navigate the cliff edge between being heartfelt and being cheesy – from this trailer we’re not so sure that it’s going to do it successfully but it’s still a great idea.

Ok, so we’re not the only ones shouting about these this week. We love the re-cycling of a simple technology (ie GIFs) to make something new and great. This one seems to be the most popular in the office, but check out the full collection at From Me To You’s Tumblr.

A few weeks ago, D&AD held one of their Sharp’ner events on What Makes A Great Idea? (apologies for the cliched lightbulb pic)and the answer was a resounding shoulder shrug and a muttered “I dunno but it kinda looks like one of these ideas…” Feeling deeply unsatisfied with this answer we asked five members of the Outside Line team, all from different disciplines, what they thought made a great idea…

David Hamilton, Development

I always thought ideas are like greatness. Some ideas are just great (internet porn), some ideas achieve greatness (Facebook) and some ideas have greatness thrust upon them (Twitter).

Ideas often depend on your point of view and great ideas come from being able to see something in a way no one else has, or even seeing a use in something that other people have dismissed as ridiculous.

For instance, washing fruit and vegetables in your washing machine sounds dumb, right? But check this out, a washing machine manufacturer in China went round to a guy’s house to fix his washing machine and when they got there they found it was clogged up with lettuce and other veg and they were like “wtf man?” (or something to that effect). He replied ”yeah I wash my food in here”. Instead of laughing at him as they probably should, they went back to their R&D team and they designed a washing machine that cleans food as well as clothes. That may not have been the greatest idea but that kind of thinking can result in winning ideas.

Dan Rutherford, Creative Planning

For any idea to be successful it needs to offer a fun, entertaining or useful experience for consumers. If it doesn’t, then don’t bother.

It’s not just about delivering the brand message in a certain way, it’s about creating something that adds to the consumers day. In my opinion, brands that offer a continual flow of experiences for consumers are the ones that create better connections with existing and new fans of the brand. The energy that’s created by fans who interact with your idea is what makes the idea great.

Gemma Bardsley, Social Media

Great ideas come from insights into culture; knowledge of the way people behave and using this information to create a relevant ‘solution’. The solution and ‘idea’ may not have been a problem anyone knew needed to be fixed. Way before Facebook existed we were all happy with the way we interacted with people, the creation of Facebook wasn’t essential to our day-to-day life. However, insight into human behaviour suggested that there was another way to facilitate communication, which harnessed the web’s ability to connect people and our inherent desire to share information. This led to the creation of the biggest social networking tool.

In the way that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunities; a great idea is what happens when cultural insight meets inspiration.

The below video is a great example of cultural insights resulting in a great idea; providing a city with 20,000 bikes so they can move from a to b and kickstart their own economy.

Kelly Wisker, Accounts

“I wish I’d thought of that first”… if people say that about your idea… you’re onto a winner.

A great idea is something that fills a void that people never even knew existed – a new product that you didn’t need, but now you can’t live without it… an app that solves a problem or makes your life easier… a tool that brings you together with friends or reunites you with family.

Ben Stapleton, Video

A great idea is something you shouldn’t have to think about, it should come to you.

Whether it’s the perfect sandwich filling or a great idea for a video, it’s something you should want to put into action straight away, regardless of any hurdles.

It’s often so easy to get bogged down by obstacles and the thought that “someone else has probably already done it”. This can be the death of an idea before it’s even begun, it’s important that once you have an idea that you have confidence in it and block out your inner naysayer.